


You're what, Ten?

by Guardian_Rex



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: 4th dimensinoal Physics, Angst, Big Brother Danny, Descriptions of potential murder, Elle is a ghost who gained a human half, Emotions, I will add more as I post, Jazz is the best big sister ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardian_Rex/pseuds/Guardian_Rex
Summary: Danielle is ten.  Butch said so in that latest 10 years later thing, so I'm wondering how wonderboy just stood there and let an infant in a ten year old's body go out into the world on her own.  like, what the fuck?  No.  Danny wouldn't actually let that happen.  So here's how I think it went down.





	1. Chapter 1

“Best part is that I didn’t have to waste any energy on your dad.”  Danny’s head turned so quickly he felt a few joints pop.  Danielle was floating just a foot away from his window, grinning like a cat that caught the canary.

“Danielle?”  Tucker raised a brow, examining the homunculus critically.  Sam tensed like a bowstring, ready to pull out and fire her wrist ray at any moment.  Danny kept his focus mainly on the miniature Phantom outside of his window, with an ectosignature that could easily trigger every alarm and weapon in the house.  “What the-”

“It’s Elle, actually.  And don’t worry, you’ll see me again.”  She turned to fly off into the horizon and start a new life abroad when the presence of another ghost waved over her senses.  Turning back she raised a brow as Danny put a firm hand on her shoulder.  “Um, Danny?  Why are you interrupting my dramatic flight into the sunset?”

“No, nu-uh, no way.”  He pulled her back into his room and sat the confused girl down on his bed.  “You’re not going out there alone, Elle.  Physically you’re, what, ten?  No ten year old should be out in the world alone!  Hell,” Danny scoffed.  “A 20-year-old shouldn’t be out there alone either.  And chronologically speaking, you’re probably not even two years old!”

“Are we talkin in or out of the pod?  Cause-” Elle tried to shrug the situation off, but Danny and his friends wouldn’t let her.

“I’d say out since exiting the artificial womb would be your day of birth… which was when, pray tell?”  Sam sat down next to the pair, a glance turned to Tucker, who already had his PDA out and a scheduling app ready.  “We should know when your first birthday party should be.”

“I don’t know or care how Vlad managed to develop a human body within only a few months, Elle, but you’re still new to the world,”  Danny said as he levitated his chair over to sit in.  “You don’t know how a lot of things work, and I don’t want you learning the hard way without someone to fall back on.”

“And who would that be?”  Elle crossed her arms, frowning hard at her original as he listed off a billion and one reasons why she shouldn’t adventure on her own.  “You can’t come with me, you’ve got school and ghost hunting and your parents.  I’m not going back to Vlad,” the two shivered at the thought.  “I don’t know anyone else in either world.  I don’t have any fallback, Danny.  Wasn’t made for that.”  Elle’s vision grew blurry, and she blinked away the tears, wanting to be able to focus on leaving.  Danny’s hand was still on her shoulder, however, keeping her grounded to the bed and solid.  “Danny, I wasn’t made with or for a family.”

“Technically, Danny is your biological father since you vary enough from him to not be considered an actual clone.”  Tucker piped up helpfully as he tapped away at his PDA.  “Gimme a minute, the cheesehead had Technus help him construct his security I’m pretty sure.  I can tell you your birthday in just a bit.”

“The fact is,” Danny said, “you don’t have someone to rely on in life, not if you go off on your own right now.  But if you stay here, then I can guarantee you will.”  Elle looked up into Danny’s eyes, Sam turned his gaze from the homunculus to her friend, and behind him, Danny could hear Tucker’s stylus slowing to a pause.  “Stay here, and you can become part of the family.”

“And your parents?”  Sam spoke up, twisting her wrist ray around rapidly.  “Are you ready to come out and tell them your secret Danny?  We don’t have a Clockwork redo or the Reality Gauntlet fall back on if they don’t take it well.”  The goth stared into Danny’s eyes, worrying her lip as the various scenarios where the Fentons tried to kill Danny in both forms flitted through her head.  The security system turned on and targeting the Phantom, Maddie’s plasma staff burning a hole through his chest, an ectoblast splattering his brains on the wall after he turned back to prove that he’s still their son.  “You know Tuck and I are here for you if things do go that way, but…”

“Hey, there’s every chance that they’ll be all for it, overcome with guilt, proud of you for being a hero like Jazz is, fascinated by your stories about friendly ghosts in the Zone, etcetera.”  Tucker put a hand on Danny’s shoulder and squeezed.  “You’re their baby boy after all.  Younger children get parental favoritism.”  Danny snorted and smiled at the two of them.

“Yeah, you’re right, both of you.  I’m terrified of telling my parents what I am, but I’m confident that they’ll accept me.  They did the last time that they had time to process things, they will now.  And besides,” he said, locking eyes with Elle, voice softening.  “Your safety is more important than my secret.  I can’t force you to make this decision, though.  It’s your life, and no matter how  much I wanna help, it’s up to you whether you want to make this your home and family, or if you want to go off on your own adventure and discover what the world is like out there.”

Elle stared, slack jawed and in shock, at Danny and his friends.   She hadn’t even thought about staying behind and having a family.  She was an imperfection, a mistake, a cheap copy that Danny would really want to have around.  Yet,  here he was offering to expose himself to the top ghost hunters in the world as the thing they’ve been hunting for the past year or so.  Danny was going to either have her adopted into his family, or he was going to go with her on her adventure around the world to stay alive depending on what happened after he told his secret.  Danny was willing to turn his world upside down for her and wanted her to stay.

The tears welled up in her eyes again, and Elle flung herself at Danny, wrapping her arms around him as she reverted to human form.  “Oh god, thank you Danny, thank you so much!”  When she sobbed, Elle could feel that Danny had become human again too.  He didn’t push her away for messing up his shirt or tell her to quiet down so that his parents wouldn’t hear.  Danny wrapped his arms around her, and Elle cried for three solid minutes into his chest, overwhelmed by the emotions swirling inside of her head and her core.

Once she could breathe properly and had wiped the snot and tears from her face, Elle beamed up at Danny and hugged him again.  “I want to stay here with you.  I want a real family.”  Elle spoke with as much conviction as she could muster, and squeaked when Danny jumped from his chair to his bed with her still in his arms.

“Welcome to the Fenton Family, little sister.”  Danny ruffled her hair and looked up at Tucker.  “How much progress do you have on getting into Vlad’s files bro?”

“I’ve got everything he has on her stored right here on Emma, and I’ll be copying it all down to my other stuff later so that I can create birth records and everything.  You can get the papers into whichever… hospital I pick for this.”  If Danny didn’t know how careful Tuck was with his tech, he’d have expected there to be a hole in the monitor from how fast the stylus was moving.  “I’ll need a couple of nights to get everything ready, and if we’re going to do this believably without wishing on Desire and making everything more complicated, we’ll need to have the Fentons adopt Elle.”  He stopped, looking up from his screen at the halfas on the bed.  “Would you Danielle or Elle as your legal first name?  Also, would you like a middle name?”

Elle blinked slowly at Tucker and cocked her head to the side.  Tuck apparently recognized this as a signal that she had no idea what the heck he had just said because he muttered something about getting back to her on that and returned to his typing.  “Guys?  I’m pretty tired.”

“It’s been a pretty full day, hasn’t it?”  Sam hummed and plucked Elle from Danny’s arms, ignoring her squirming.  “You’re tiny.  You can crash at my place, we have plenty of extra rooms for when my parents have one of their adult parties, and everyone needs to sleep it off.”  Danny narrowed his eyes over Elle’s shoulder, and Sam grinned cheekily at him.  “No, you may not enter the wine cellar, I have a ghost shield on around it at all times.”

“What’s wine?”  Danny and Tucker snorted before the ghost boy wrapped an arm around her middle and then around Sam’s.  “Guys, what is it?  I don’t like those grins on your faces.”  Tucker walked over and wrapped his arms around Danny’s shoulders, everyone ignoring Elle’s question as the teen shifted into his ghost form.  “I’m gonna kick your butts if you don’t tell me soon.”

“Sure you will, Elle.  Sure you will.”  Danny took off toward first Sam, and then Tucker’s houses.


	2. Jazz is the mom friend, Danny is the Unhealthy Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny cries for the first time in ever, Jazz is the best Mom ever, and the 'Danny could still turn evil' theories brewing in Danny's head are debunked.
> 
> Oh and his coolio core powers are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking at it, Jazz basically did a lot of raising Danny herself. As the kids got older, and the ghost portal became more and more of a reality, Drs. Fenton were likely too preoccupied with that to pay their kids much mind, and while Jazz obviously is well put together, Danny... is less so. So yeah.
> 
> Also, anyone find future! Vlad's story to be pretty fishy?
> 
> Plus, Danny's ice powers seemed... outta nowhere and completely unrelated to him. So I went with something a bit more closely tied to his death.
> 
> ANGST  
>  ANGST  
> ANGST  
> NGST  
> GST  
> ST  
> T

With Elle resting at Sam's house and Tucker working on constructing a legal identity for Elle, Danny was left alone with his thoughts. The first person he should tell about Elle was Jazz, she was certain to accept the young halfa right away. She'd likely have something to say about how they murdered the other homunculi without remorse. The sight of his own warped skeleton being cremated in green plasma, a hole blasted straight through the chest of another one seconds before he melted into a puddle of goo. A glowing speck that invaded his mind and his body and when he forced it out, the homunculus hit the ground and melted away like the other one. Elle dripping ectoplasm and skin as she fought against him, desperately, just to survive. The look on the last one's face,  _ his  _ face, as he evaporated. Vaguely, Danny was aware that he was at the toilet and heaving up everything that occupied his stomach. The clone had literally been born as he died, opening his eyes and feeling pain for the first time, for the last time, as the only thing he was able to physically experience, and he couldn't even scream because his vocal cords had turned into green smoke after that pained whimper. Eyes wide and fearful and begging for what he had been denied by cruel and heartless fate. By Danny. By the Ghostly Wail.

The clone's voice echoed in his head before a deeper voice, one of familiarity and malice and hatred whispered poison into his ear.  _ This was inevitable. You were always destined to be a murderer, you know.  _ Once he had emptied his stomach of its contents, Danny hung off of the sink and flushed the toilet.  _ A monster, a murderer, a cold blooded killer. How long before you take another life? _

"Shut up," Danny growled, eyes flaring up a toxic green that illuminated the room. He rinsed his mouth out a bit and glared into the mirror. "Just shut up."

_It was so easy to kill them, though._ The dark voice purred as the lights flickered on. Danny never touched the switch. _The next time will be easier, and there_ ** _will_** _be a next time. And each time, it'll get easier and easier._

"Shut. Up." The porcelain of the sink creaked under the strain of Danny's grip but he didn't hear it. He only heard the rush of his blood in his ears and that damn voice, taunting him, mocking him.

_Once it's become effortless to kill ghosts, just think of how easily you can take revenge on the humans._ He felt the tingle of static, dancing along his arms to the pounding beat of his heart. _You can take your revenge on this whole damn world. After all, what's anyone ever done for you? Ridiculed you, bullied you, ignored you, used you. They underestimate you._ The mirror shook, either that or Danny, and the lights grew brighter and brighter. His stomach tossed and turned, but there was nothing left for him to expel. _Tucker is jealous of your power and dreams of using power against you, rubbing it in your face. Sam only cares about you because you're unique, different, the son of the crazy people and now a superhero. Jazz downright hates you, even if she doesn't say it. After all, who ever_ ** _wants_** _to raise their stupid little brother?_ The sink chipped and cracked, tears streaked down his cheeks like comets in the sky. _Don't they all deserve it? Haven't they_ ** _earned_** _an early grave? Perhaps they'll all respect the dead once they're among them._

"No. no no no…." Danny whimpered, nails digging so hard into his skin that blood began to stain his fingertips. His blood, her blood. Blood that spilled every day, night after night, because the ghosts wouldn't stop coming and trying to destroy him, his family, his friends, everyone and everything. "No no no no no…"

_ All it'll take for you to kill again will be when innocent little Elle dies,  _ the voice mused casually.  _ Probably caused by you. _ Danny knew that it was both him and the mirror shaking now, and the lights were growing brighter with every word that burned its way into his mind.  _ That's all it'll take before you turn into me. _

"QUIET!" Danny roared. The mirror shattered, the lights exploded and the sink cracked. The door handle turned and Jazz saw her brother surrounded by glass shards, chippings of porcelain and green tinged blood. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" the glass around him floated and shook, Jazz pushing the shards away with the plastic brush in her hand.

"Danny…" she knelt down, wrapping her brother in her arms and carried him out to her room. The whole time, he muttered to someone that Jazz couldn't hear, begging for silence. Once Danny was on her bed, his wounds wrapped up in gauze, and the rest of him wrapped in a blanket, Jazz began humming a song she used to get him to sleep through his nightmares as a kid. It didn't take as long as she thought it would, Danny fell asleep quickly and went deathly still. "Great, now I'm thinking in puns and dark humor." Gathering herself up, Jazz thought about how she was going to explain the lights to her parents as she swept the shards of glass and porcelain up. She'd have to register Danny's ectosignature as friendly in the defense systems again if she went with the 'a ghost got in and destroyed the bathroom' excuse. Technically it was the truth if she was being honest with herself. "When are you going to get a break, little brother?"

Jazz muttered as she carried the bag of pointy shards out to the trash bin. "When am I gonna get a break?" The ginger briefly wondered how life would have gone if her parents hadn't let their obsession over ghosts spread to every aspect of their lives. Realizing that if Danny hadn't gotten in the portal, her father would be dead, Jazz shook off the thoughts and looked around suspiciously. "That's not the kind of thinking that will help anyone. I should be doing something productive." Once in her room, Jazz pulled up her laptop and her headphones. "Maybe Manny has something he needs help with." Opening her own ghost files and a video chat program, Jazz did her best to quietly add to her own understanding of how ghosts and their minds worked.

* * *

 

"So now Tuck is building up her ID as a homeless orphan once that's done,  subltyI'm gonna tell Mom and Dad about everything." Danny finished, breathing out a sigh and relaxing against the back of Jazz's desk chair. Running a hand through his mess of hair, Danny shook his head. "Do you think I made the right call?" He focused on Jazz, whose lips were pressed into a thin, neutral line. Her pencil tapped against her notebook and she hummed in the way that Danny had dubbed her 'loading response' noise.

"I think," Jazz said, finally, "that you did the most responsible thing you could have, and I'm proud of you for this little brother." She smiled, still tapping out a rhythm on her notebook.  _ Still not done then. _ "However, that's not all there is to talk about, is it Danny?"  _ How did she sneak into Vlad's mansion with the subtlety of a charging bull? _ Danny rolled his eyes and rested his chin on his palm, quirking a brow at his sister.

"Actually I'm a little curious as to who you were talking to when I woke up. Was that a boyfriend I saw?" Jazz's cheeks turned the slightest shade redder and Danny's eyes widened with glee. "Oh sweet Hecate, it  _ was _ wasn't it? When do I get to meet this Manny? Have you told him about our crazy parents yet?" Danny put on his best 'aloof and condescending' look. "If you wait until after you're engaged or something, that's entrapment."

"For your information, Manny is a friend and a patient of mine, Danny." Jazz cleared her throat and uncrossed her legs. "While I'm sure throwing my own words back at me is fun and all, we both know that's not what I'm talking about."  _ note to self, tease relentlessly about Manny in front of parents. _ "I pulled you from a pile of floating glass and you were telling someone to shut up repeatedly. Don't try and tell me that you're fine."

"Wow Jazz, the half dead ghost kid risking his life every day and night who gets no sleep isn't fine?" Danny asked with enthused incredulity. "I would have never guessed! It's not like I get shot at by three different people on a good day or anything. Thankfully, I have much better dodging skills than the people that I find - let's say, spiritually taxing." tapping his foot, Danny stared off into space for a moment before snapping his fingers. "Electromagnetism! I've got sweet electrical powers! I can't think of any other reason why the lights would blow. I need to figure out this power asap."

"You don't have to tell me, but you do need to talk about it at some point. You've admitted there's an issue, which is the first step sure, but you still need to find a way to deal with it and talking is the best avenue you've got." Jazz's brows crinkled in that way that screamed 'I'll help you whether you want me to or not.'  _ Just like that one ride to school before the Lunch Lady got to attacking people. _

"It…" Danny sighed, whispering so quietly that Jazz's hearing was strained. "Four people, Jazz. We killed four people in the past two days." The red head's eyes widened while Danny's body trembled. "The other homunculi, the clone. They were all in ghost form only, but ghosts still feel pain, still know what it is to live and die, and I killed them!" Danny pulled at his hair and the lights flickered. Jazz's arms wrapped around his frame and pulled him out of the chair. "I vaporized the first one like he was nothing. I I thought he could handle it, I thought he was durable like the other ghosts! I felt so bad I left and Sam and Tuck had to, had to, had to fix the golf course while I puked into a cloud." He felt a hand soothing circles into his back, but Danny's body remained painfully tense. His ears popped and the half ghost just barely noticed that Jazz's lamp was getting brighter and brighter.

"The second one was big and brawny and smashing holes in the ground like a monster, so I thought he could take a hit, ya know? I thought he could take it, he was dealing with all the other hits pretty damn good so far, ya know? So I, we, built up a charge and we shot him in the chest and I thought we'd just push him back and knock him out, right? But, but that's not what happened." His voice rose in pitch and Jazz's leg shifted around him, unplugging her lamp while he ranted. "Jazz, we shot a  _ hole the size of my head _ in his chest! He he melted into a, a pile of goop!" Danny's stomach lurched and he felt himself dry heave right against Jazz's shoulder, but thankfully there was nothing left to expel.

Jazz kissed Danny's head and sang in her softest voice. "Darkness falls, a favorite blanket, that surrounds us all. A quiet ending to a troubling day of hassles and troubles we have to put away…" The usual lullaby that coaxed him to sleep when he was a little kid filled his ears and some part of him relaxed the tiniest bit.

"One," Danny continued while focusing on Jazz's song instead of his words. "One was a a little glowy speck. He he overshadowed me. Tried to force me, force me to morph into Phantom…" Danny heard his voice break, felt it in his every other word, and cursed himself for being so weak. He was a superhero damnit! He lifted cars, blazed across the stars, defeated a practical god! Why was he still so  _ weak _ ? "When I forced him out of my body, overloaded the scanner pod thing, he he landed in front of me,  _ right in front of me _ and he and he… Jazz he melted into a puddle!" His wailing was pathetic, and his words were repetitive. Why couldn't he stop fucking talking?

"It's ok to cry, you know… crying is one of the most human things we can do." Damn Jazz and her psychic powers and her soothing words and her motherly aura. Danny knew that Jazz  _ probably _ wasn't actually psychic, but the way she knew how to get into his head recently made him wonder, dimly, in that small corner of his mind not preoccupied with the cracks in it. "You've been a strong hero for so long, and I'm proud of you. Sam and Tuck are proud of you too, and we both know that." He felt some ungodly annoying sound shake his entire body and felt a wave of self targeted disgust hit him like the ocean. "You've more than earned a moment to just let it all out." It felt like a physical crack had formed in his head, and everything poured out at once.

"The last one. God the last one, Jazz, he wasn't just a homunculus. He was a clone, grown to my age!" Hot tears fell from his eyes and Danny sobbed his words out more than spoke them. "He looked just just like me! And I killed him when I I, Vlad was gonna kill Elle, he was gonna gonna melt her down and she was gonna die and I used The Wail!" Jazz stiffened and Danny's voice echoed and broke with emotion, his body heating up as static filled his ears. "I killed someone, an infant, with  _ His _ power, the the clone he he fell out and and and he was so  _ scared _ and he whimpered like I did as a kid and he dissolved into smoke, Jazz Jazz I saw my own face fade into smoke because of the Ghostly Wail, Jazz I killed him, I killed him, I killed him,  _ I'm just like Him _ !"

"No," Jazz said firmly, cupping Danny's cheeks and tilting his face up to hers. "Danny, you are not like Him. You are not, and were not ever like him. You are a hero who has saved countless people from dangers that easily could have killed them. You've helped firefighters when no ghost was involved, stopped human criminals, even looked up building specs to try and help the construction crews. You aren't that other Phantom, and do you know why?" Danny shook his head, trying to reign in his gross sobbing. "How did he happen in the first place?"

"Because you, you guys died, I went to live with Vlad, cause he's our god father." Jazz's nose wrinkled at the reminder. "And and Vlad pulled Phantom out of me to spare me the pain of my, my emotions. Then my Phantom half pulled out his Plasmius half and overshadowed him…" Jazz held up a hand for him to stop and Danny hiccuped.

"I hear holes in that story that the future Vlad told you. You've been Fenton and Phantom separately before. Your sense of responsibility, work ethic, desire to protect people and general hero complex all went to your Phantom side, because that's what you associate most with your other half." The pressure in the room dialed down and the throbbing in Danny's head steadily died down as he muttered something about not having a hero complex. "No malice, no evil. And how would losing your powers heal your hurt? Feeling weaker would only hurt your human half, and your ghost would be reeling with the separation from yet another part of himself. Both halves would look for a way to be whole again, not destroy anything. And finally…" Skeptisism that had previously been reserved for disproving ghosts to their parents laced Jazz's tone.

"Why would you overshadow Vlad? I can see an enraged and terrified Phantom ripping Plasmius out to fight him off for good, I can. Getting rid of the biggest possible threat remaining sounds like something that Phantom would do in a state of complete emotional break down, especially if its to protect the human side of Vlad from his ghost half. I have zero doubt that Vlad views his humanity as a weakness half the time." Danny pulled back slightly, clearing his throat and quickly phasing his tears and snot through the floor. "Thank you. If the evil Phantom is Vlad overshadowed, why is it Phantom's body warped to a more Plasmius theme? Why isn't it Plasmius with a Phantom theme?" Realization dawned on Danny like the sun over the horizon. "Older Vlad lied to you Danny, Plasmius possessed your other self. That's why you will never turn into that monster. He isn't you."

Jazz kissed his forehead and Danny grinned, ducking his way out of getting his hair ruffled. "You're a hero Danny, down to your very soul. No one can change who you are, only force your hand. Jazz held his hands in hers, giving them a squeeze. "And these are the hands of a boy who's so strong he forgets to let himself be weak for a bit. You can let it out, Danny. You're still stronger than all of them."

Danny wrapped Jazz in a tight hug, feeling lighter than air. "Thanks Jazz. You're the best."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he was electrtocuted to death and after possession (A basic power related to any and all ghosts) Danny got the power to shoot plasma blasts. so um. Electromagnetism anyone?


	3. Sugar Fueled Smackdowns and Family Bonding Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gives Elle sugar, Skulker makes his weekly appearance in Danny's life, and Danny enjoys some bonding with his fam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS BAAAACK! So, I wrote this a while ago, and finished it just recently. Hope you like it!

The next day, Danny took Jazz with him over to Sam’s house to meet Elle.  When they arrived, Danny let out a gasp of horror.  “Oh dear gods, no!”

Bouncing around Sam’s room in all black clothing and speaking a mile a minute was Elle, eyes glowing extra bright.  “Hey Danny, hey Jazz, how ya doin?”  Danny vaugely remembered the times that he let his body become more rubber like so that he would bounce off of the things he was about to ram into instead of crash.  This was looking like a far more successful attempt than his own.

“Tell me you didn’t give her sugar to go with the goth outfit.”  Danny reached out and grabbed Elle by the back of her shirt, stopping her next rebound.  “Do you not remember when we were ten and I ate one of the sugar cookies Tuck’s mom made?  Elle, how many fingers am I holding up?”  Danny held up three fingers and Elle squinted at them in concentration, the light in her eyes growing brighter for a second before dimming the tiniest bit.

“Six.  Do you mean on this plane of existence or both?  Cause you’ve got like, two whole layers to you right now, dude.”  Elle phased through his grip and Danny raised a brow at the tiny ghost.  “Did you know that there’s a bunch of layers to reality and being a ghost means you can keep going like, basically down but through reality layers?  But we can’t go any higher than Earth.”  Danny turned to Jazz, who shrugged and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s what our mom and dad taught us about Ghosts and the Ghost Zone.  The Zone exists on a 4th spacial dimension in negative relation to our own mathematically speaking.”  Elle turned her full attention to the redhead and Jazz inspected the little Phantom in turn.  “You look adorable, and now I have to find the pictures of Danny from four years ago to show you how much cuter than him you are.”  Jazz ruffled Elle’s head and Elle giggled like she was in an echo chamber.

“Thanks.  I’m Elle, I’m guessing you’re Danny’s big sister?”  Elle grabbed Jazz’s hand and shook it rapidly.  “I have a feeling you already know my story, so what’s yours?”  Jazz could guess that Elle didn’t want to relive the painful events of her recent life, so she started talking about her interest in psychology and how the mind worked.

While the soon to be sisters got to know each other, Danny sat on Sam’s bed and nudged her and Tucker.  “How you guys holdin up?  I’m really sorry about how I treated you the past week.”  Both friends rolled their eyes and groaned.  “No, seriously, I acted like a jerk and-”

“We get it, Danny.  You acted like an ass, we got angry at you, you got kidnapped, we saved you, and now you have a new little sister.”  Sam shoved a pillow into Danny’s face, silencing his sputtering.  “Everyone has those periods of being a jerk, especially people who have to save jerks from being murdered every day.”

“Life goes on man,” Tucker nodded sagely, nudging Danny back with his leg.  “Sam I have been friends with you since, what?  Kindergarten and second grade.  Now, thanks to being friends with you, I have a reason to do so much more hacking.”  He pulled his PDA from his pocket and grinned.  “For instance, I’m now running a program to track down the birth certificates of basically every grayhat I’ve ever encountered so that I can compare the information provided and make sure I’m forging an accurate birth certificate.  As you do.”  

“Tucker is a meme, confirmed,” Danny laughed, wrapping his arms around both of his friends.  “You guys are the best.  So, do we go out and have fun with Elle and Jazz today, or figure out a way to kick Vlad out of our lives?”

“We could try actually studying for once, mr. I wanna be an astronaut,” Sam pulled out one of Danny’s texbooks from under her bed.  Danny groaned and fell back on the dark violet linen that Sam slept on.  “You need to keep your grades up, Danny.  Nasa doesn’t hire C students.”

“Ugh, I don’t wanna- wait a minute!”  Light filled the room as Danny transformed into his ghost half and split into a pair of himself.  “One of me can stay and study, while the other goes out to have fun!”

“Studying,  _ and _ testing out my powers.”  The second Danny grinned, both closing their eyes in concentration before a pair of Danny Fentons stood before the group of friends.  “Awesome!  Let’s see how long I can keep up having a duplicate while I’m human.”

“I think Jazz Danny and Elle should all go out and have some sibling bonding time while me Danny and Sam stay here and chill.”  Tucker laid back with his hands behind his head.  “I’m all caught up on my homework anyway.  It’s amazing how fast you can get stuff done when you compare it to fighting ghosts and hacking through government data.”

“And I- did you say government data?”  Jazz turned to arch a questioning brow at Tucker, who shrugged and raised a brow back.  “ _ Our _ government?”

“Knowing more makes you an accessory, Jazz.  Are you sure you want that?”   Jazz glared at Tucker for a moment, receiving only a quirked brow in return, before huffing and grabbing Elle out of the air before she could pounce on the geek.  “You heard nothing from me, as I said nothing.”  Everyone rolled their eyes and Tucker snickered.

“I think that sounds like a great idea, Tuck.”  Elle grabbed onto Jazz’s waist and lifted her into the air.  “Let’s go, let’s go!  I wanna see a carnival or something!”  Elle shook with excitement, and Jazz laughed in her arm.

“I think  _ I’ll _ take Jazz, squirt.  Maybe you should do a few tricks in the air to burn off all that extra energy.”  Danny transformed into his Phantom form once more and wrapped an arm around Jazz, phasing her out of Elle’s grip.  “How about we start with the park?  That’s not too far away from here.”

“It’s a pretty peaceful location that’s not too crowded on most days thanks to ghost attacks… sure, let’s do that.”  Jazz gave a thumbs up and held onto Danny when he flew through Sam’s walls.  “There was a window right there, little brother.  We literally flew through it to get here.”

“What’s the fun of using the entrances someone  _ else _ made for you?”  Danny snickered and watched as Elle soared up higher than them, making loops in the air with her aura trailing behind her.

* * *

 

Once Danny and Jazz landed in an open part of the park, Elle landed in the nearest tree and let out a whooping laugh.  Danny looked around and nodded to himself when he saw that no one was there.  “Sweet, it’s empty.  We can hang here for a bit.”  Danny leapt from his place next to Jazz and grabbed onto Elle, pulling her up into the air with him.  “So Squirt, did you actually like my taste in music?”

“What, a bunch of screaming about death and power dynamics and how life isn’t fair?”  Elle snorted and rolled her eyes.  “Yeah,no.  Think my ears started bleeding when I gave it a listen.”  Danny moved to rub his knuckles against her head and Elle turned invisible, vaulting off of Danny’s shoulder and landing next to Jazz.  She bowed to Jazz’s applause and smirked.  “Gotta try harder than that, bro.”

“Who’s trying?  I’m just feeling betrayed,” Danny put a hand over his chest, head dipped back with an arm over his eyes.  “My own flesh and ectoplasm, hating on Dumpty Humpty!  The horror!”  A green disk formed next to his hand and as Danny pulled it down in front of him, the disk spread out and curled under its edges.  Once it cooled down and lost most of its glow, Danny held up his construct with a grin.  “Aha!  Told Sam I could figure out constructs before Tucker created a virtual reality.  Now she owes me twenty bucks.”  He tossed it over to the girls and grinned.  “Ultimate frisbee anyone?”

Jazz grabbed it out of the air, holding it behind her back when Elle’s fingers curled around empty air.  “You could use some exercise, so why not?”  Ignoring her brother’s indignant sputtering, Jazz threw the frisbee to Danny’s left.  The eldest siblings stared in shock at Elle as she held up the disk with a smug look on her face.  “Did you just teleport?”

“Looked like how apparation worked in the Harry Potter movies,” Danny nodded, catching the frisbee when it was thrown back to him.  “It looked like your body folded in on itself, then unfolded to catch the frisbee.”  The disc sailed over Elle’s head as she contemplated Danny’s words and Jazz jumped up to catch it.  “Also, is this fair to Jazz, considering we can fly and she can’t?”

“It’s not fair to  _ you _ that I have better aim and have actually done this more than a few times in my whole life, Danny.”  Jazz rolled her eyes and launched the frisbee, grinning when Danny reached out to grab it, and it curved right around him to Elle.  “It’s simple physics, little brother.”

“Simple for a super genius, yeah.”  Elle pulled her arm back, warped over to the other side of Danny and threw the frisbee right under him.  “Which, as I can tell, isn’t a strictly hereditary thing.”

“Hey!”

“Actually, Danny’s pretty smart, if you pay attention to him,” Jazz commented, smirking when Danny dove to grab the frisbee out of her reach.  “He’s a great artist, both in detail and speed sketching.  He’s able to make on the fly strategies, and while he needs to work on the whole ‘throw myself at every obstacle at full speed’ tactic for combat, he follows that up with some proof that he paid attention during our lessons with mom in the past.”

“Yes,” a familiar voice commented as Danny and Elle’s ghost sense went off.  Danny tossed the frisbee in front of Elle and it expanded into a larger circular shield while a dome covered himself and Jazz.  A missile struck both shields and Danny growled in frustration.  “It takes a particularly intelligent prey to escape the Ghost Zone’s greatest hun-”

Danny threw a ball of ectoplasma at Skulker’s face and rolled his eyes.  “You aren’t even the greatest hunter in this park.  The stray cats roaming around can catch things better than you can.”  Danny zoomed up into Skulker’s face and kicked him in the chest, sending him back several feet.  “When are you going to quit stalking me, Skulker?”

“When you are no longer a rarity among the worlds, whelp, and are instead a trophy to be hung on my wall!”  A glowing green blade erupted from the irate mech’s gauntlet, and Danny matched it with a sword of his own.  “You’ve improved in the use of your powers, I see.”

“Thanks, I get a lot of practice from stomping your mechanical face in.”  Danny smirked and tilted his head toward the clashing swords, blocking Skulker’s attempt at a right hook.  The shield still floating in front of Elle shined with energy and shrunk down to the size of a frisbee again, this time with a thinner edge to it.

Elle smirked and grabbed onto the weapon, tossing it at the pair higher up in the sky.  Danny kicked back just in time for the disk to slice off Skulker’s right arm, causing the ghost to cry out in surprise.  “What the hell?”

“Hey, watch it!  There are children present!”  Elle smirked and warped behind Skulker, driving her fist through his chest.  “Never know what kind of language an impressionable kid like me could pick up on.”

“Who are  _ you _ , whelp?”  Skulker turned the turbines of his jetpack to roast Elle, but she simply shifted tangibility and backed away from the irate hunter.  “A cousin that got caught up in the whelp’s parents attempt to recreate their success with the portal?”  He aimed a shoulder cannon at Elle, and a plasma rifle at Danny.  Both fired simultaneously, hitting Danny but missing Elle by leagues as she simply danced around them and let the last few pass right through her.  “Stop that!”

“Stop using my natural abilities to get out of the way?  Why would I do that?”  Elle snorted and held out a hand toward the missiles that missed her.  The explosions shook the area, but no flame could be seen.  Only Elle’s aura growing a tad brighter.  “After all, unlike you, I’m strong _and_ smart enough to win a fight.”

“And also unlike you,” Danny added, chopping off Skulker’s other arm with his glowing green hand.  “She’s got backup to rely on.  It’s sad, not having friends, isn’t it Skulky?”  Danny ducked a shot from the mech’s other shoulder cannon and ripped it off.

A green blast from the ground dented Skulker’s face plate and he looked down in irritation.  “Oh, don’t mind me, just a semi professional ghost hunter doing my family business.”  Jazz fired a round of shots at Skulker and backflipped away when he dove at her, a satisfied grin on her face.  She fired once more and knocked off one of the turbine engines on his wings.  “You didn’t need that, right?”

“Insolent wench, I will-”  Skulker’s tirade was cut off by Elle throwing another disk at him, this time removing the mech head from the rest of it.  Danny picked up the head and pulled Skulker out with a smirk.  “I will kill you all!   Both of you Phantoms shall reside in my trophy room!  This isn’t the last you’ve heard of me!”  The tiny blob that was Skulker fumed at the trio of siblings, even as he was sucked into the Fenton Thermos ™ by Jazz.

“Well, that was fun,” Danny hummed, wrapping Elle in a headlock and giving her a noogie successfully this time.  “Gotcha!  Caught two ghosts today.”

“Ah!  Danny, stop, ow!”  Elle at least pretended that it hurt, kicking her legs even though she could easily just phase out of his grip.

Danny chose to ignore Elle’s complaints with a nasty smirk on his face.  “Also, nice improvement on your aim there, Jazz.”  Danny shot a playful glare at Jazz’s innocent smile.  “I remember last time you had to capture Skulker, you hit me instead of him even though there were several yards between us.”

“What can I say?  I’ve been working on my aim.”  Jazz shrugged and patted Elle on the head when she warped out of Danny’s grip, fixing her hair back into the ponytail that it had been before Danny ruined it.  “Must be in the genes.”

“Riiiight… speaking of genes, I think it’s time we had a certain talk with Mom and Dad.”  Danny crossed his arms, pouting in thought.  “After all, if we’re gonna ask them to adopt Elle, we should start with them knowing the full story first, right?  It’d be really… awkward, going from ‘hey I’m half dead’ to ‘your college buddy created a homunculus of me in little girl form and now she’ll be living with us’ in just a single day, ya know?”

Before Jazz could respond, Elle waved her hand in front of both of her older siblings.  “Ok, but, real important here, what should I do while you two have this family talk?  Pretty sure I can’t just wander around since there’s that one girl, Valerie, that nearly shot my head off when I was flying invisibly near your house to get in.”  Elle took the flaring up of Danny’s aura to be a protective big brother thing and nodded in approval of it.

“Well, maybe you can head over to Sam’s and she can order a pizza for the four of you?  I’m sure you’re hungry.”  Jazz looked up to Danny for confirmation and he nodded.  “Think you can teleport all that way?”

“Yeah.  And no, I will not explain to either of you how I’m doing this.”  Elle punched both of their arms and her body folded in on itself, shrinking out of existence.

Danny sighed and held out his arm.  “Ready to fly home and have the most awkward conversation we’ll ever have?”

“If I get time to help you think up at least some of what you’re gonna say, yes.”  Jazz smiled at her floating brother and wrapped an arm around him.  He did the same and they took off in the air, fading from visibility.

* * *

 

“Mom?”  Danny called out from his room.  Jazz followed behind him, a hand on his shoulder both to show her support and massage a bit of tension out of him.  “Dad?  You guys here?”  Footsteps could be heard rising from the basement stairs, and both Jack and Maddie appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.  A frown settled on Maddie’s face as she took in Danny and Jazz’s sober expressions and a smile on Jack’s face as he walked over to drag his kids into a bear hug that popped the joints in Danny’s aching back.  “Hi, I’m gonna be using this spine for a few more years.”  Danny wrapped his arms around his dad and returned the hug, earning a slight oof from the larger man.  When he was set down, Danny hugged his mom, and the Fenton matriarch’s frown deepened.

“Danny, is something wrong?”  Maddie’s eyes swiveled to meet Jazz’s, but her eldest gave no indication as to what could upset her baby boy enough to call a family talk.  Maddie knew very well that while he loved them all in his own way, Danny didn’t want too much involvement from herself or Jack in his life, and she respected that as much as she could.  “It’s always nice to be together as a family, but you never start these kinds of things.”  Danny quirked a brow at her, and Maddie returned the gesture.  “What, did you think your mom doesn’t know anything about you?  I still have some copies of your drawings when you were a little boy in a scrapbook, from your first constellation to the drawing you did of me back in eighth grade.”

“Yeah, and I still have those drawings you made of the Fenton Jet, submarine, RV, ATVs and everything.”  Jack ran a hand through his son’s hair and stared off at nothing for a moment, letting himself get lost in the memories.  “You were always so excited whenever we worked on making your ideas reality.”  The situation seemed to have settled back into Jack’s immediate thoughts, as he frowned down at Danny and leaned closer.  “Danny, you know you can tell us anything, right?  We’re always gonna be here for you no matter what.”  Danny smiled up at his father, then to his mother, before stepping back and sitting in the chair facing the couch.

“You guys may want to sit down for this,” the teen finally said, gesturing to the couch.  “I know that I can always count on you guys to be there for me.  I always have, and I always will.  And that’s why…” He turned to Jazz, who nodded to him with a smile.  His own was much smaller, but still there when he turned back to his parents.  “That’s why I’ve decided to share something with you that I’ve been keeping a secret for about a year or so.”  Danny’s parents both frowned and sat next to each other on the couch, quiet while Danny collected his thoughts.  After a pregnant pause, he leaned forward and laced his fingers together.  “Do you guys remember August about a year or two ago?  You guys weren’t able to get the ghost portal going on the first couple tries, so you were taking a break and were gonna get back to it after date night?”  They both nodded, remembering the confusion and elation of coming back home to a swirl of green in their laboratory.  “Well, you guys didn’t get it to work.  See, I had told Sam and Tucker about the portal the day before, and I knew you guys were out, so I showed them the lab after they asked me a billion times to see.  After Sam had taken her pictures, I showed them the portal and reminded them that it didn’t work.  Sam challenged me to go in and see if I could fix it.”  The numbers that were going through his Dad’s head were practically blurring the air around him, while Maddie’s eyes slowly widened.  “Not only that, but I was also really curious myself as to what might be on the other side of the portal.  The afterlife, ultimate unknown, ya know?”  He chuckled wryly and shook his head.  “My hazmat didn’t fit over my clothes, so I only had boxers on under it when I went in.  The last thing on my mind when It happened was how much I wished I was wearing something other than those boxers that Dad made with his face on them.

“I doubt it was by either of your design, heck I have an idea as to who put it there, but there was a good reason for why you couldn’t turn the portal on by plugging it in.”  Danny looked his mother and father in the eyes and spoke as calmly as he could.  “Someone put an On/Off button inside the tunnel.”  They gasped as dramatically as he had expected, and horror etched itself into their faces.  Dad looked like he knew exactly how much electricity had to have been present to properly charge up the ectoplasm for the purpose presented, and Mom was likely hearing the last time she ever heard him scream about a thousand times louder.  “Yeah,” he said after a moment.  “It was the most physically painful experience I’ve ever gone through in my life.  Dying tends to be.”  He shrugged, “Dying, Half Dying, whichever.  It hurt, a lot.  The ectoplasm helped, though, kept me at least somewhat alive.  Flipped all the colors on my hazmat, bleached my hair, and made my eyes green - which is weird considering that they should have inverted to orange if you think about it.”  Danny muttered under his breath to himself, but a tap on the shoulder from Jazz brought him back to the present.  His mother’s horrified expression, and his father looking paler than he’d ever seen the man.  “Supercharged ectoplasm will bond itself to whatever emotionally charged being is nearby by synchronizing the electromagnetic patterns to the brainwaves present.  In this case, it saved me by creating the town’s hero.”

The grave, the whitest of winter blizzards, the depths of space where the light of the stars did not reach; the buzz in the air near a power generator, the pulse of a heartbeat, the taste of a thunderstorm; familiar, alien, different, new, friendly, welcoming.  Reaching for the power was like second nature now, and as he reveled in the feeling of his skin darkening to match the burns that being electrocuted to death left him with, the denim and cotton of his clothes being replaced by black fabric that practically wove itself into a second skin, the cool corona of power that buzzed at the edges of his existence, Danny thought back to the first time he did it on purpose.  It felt like a lifetime ago, that first fight with the ectopi.  “Danny Phantom.”  Danny’s parents sat silently for a moment, his dad so still he probably stopped breathing for a moment, and his mom shaking so much that her goggles fell off the back of her hood.  

“I was going to tell you about this around the time school started, you know?  Everything was confusing, and puberty was bad enough without having to concentrate on your hand long enough to get a spoonful of cereal in your mouth before the spoon falls through you.”  Another slow transformation, the rings taking their sweet time to change Danny back into his human form, and the teen was staring up at the ceiling.  “Your Fenton Finder thing had just locked onto me, and as soon as you looked away, I turned invisible I was so nervous.”  He laughed at the same time that his mom let out either a gasp or a sob.  Danny didn’t want to know which, so he ignored her.  “I started talking, but then Jazz tried to say that all your ghost obsession stuff was bad for me and I just never got around to telling you.  I think it was because I heard how you reacted to thinking that Jazz was possessed.”  He locked eyes with his dad, and snorted.  “A vacuum cleaner?  Really?”

“I have a feeling dad was just grabbing every cleaning item in the house and giving it ghost capturing qualities to get out of actually cleaning.”  Jazz was leaned against the wall next to the kitchen archway, a smile on her face.  “Actually, isn’t that how he made the Fenton Crammer?”

“Oh my ancients, that thing!”  Danny groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face.  “Getting shrunken down like that makes everything seem so strange.  I’m glad I got rid of that mouse, though, I didn’t want to find any of its droppings near the pantry.”  There were tears in both of their eyes now, but the words wouldn’t stop.  “After that incident with the lunch lady, seeing how even she racked up a few casualties and property damage, I decided to try and be a superhero, ghostbuster style.  The Thermos didn’t work until I grabbed hold of it if I remember correctly.”

“It had been altered down to the slightest bit of circuitry…” Jack muttered, eerily quiet this whole time.  “You… you were the first ghost I’d ever seen after Jason died.”

“It actually does feel good to know that I inspired you to continue your work in some way, especially when it was me countering Spazz’s denial.”  Jazz glared at him, and Danny stuck his tongue out at the redhead.  “Anyway, yeah.  I’ve gone through some stuff since then, obviously.  I didn’t tell you before because I was terrified of what you might do if I told you.  Ya know, being ‘ripped apart molecule by molecule’ isn’t an appealing thought.”   He scratched the back of his head and sighed.  “But, I’ve thought about it, from then until today.  You guys are good parents, and you love me.  Sure, you can be a bit scatterbrained or focus too much on your projects, but you still notice when I started acting different, and I even experienced a couple of realities where you guys found out about me being half ghost by accident.  You reacted pretty well then, so I wanted to tell you myself.”  He looked from his mother’s face, covered in tears and being dabbed with tissues that Jazz had placed on the table a while ago, to his father’s - also tear stained but also paler than some ghosts that Danny knew.

“I love you both, and I trust you.  Whatever happens after this, I don’t know, but I don’t want to die without the people closest to me knowing something as important about me as this.”  Danny sat back and took a deep breath, waiting for either of his parents to react.  For several moments, silence filled the room.  Just when Danny was about to get up and let his parents digest this - and pack his bags at super speed in case they reacted negatively - he was lifted out of the chair and into a bone crushing embrace from both sides.  

Danny had seen his parents upset before, had watched them think he was dead before even, but the near incoherent sobs were definitely something new to him.  His father wasn’t even trying to speak, just holding onto him as firmly as possible and trying to express his regret as easily translated as possible.  His mom, however, was at least trying to use her words while putting the strength of his ribs to the test.  “Danny- so sorry! How could we not-” and so on.  Danny may have also been crying, but with his face shoved into his dad’s chest like it was, who could tell?

Eventually, he managed to pull his face away so that he could take in a melodramatic breath.  Danny was allowed to set his feet on the ground, and the freeness of his arms to actually hug his parents back.  Jazz, a blurry black and blue figure in his misty eyes, was soon wrapping Danny up in a hug as well, and for that moment, the world felt alright again.

So of course, that was when an explosion shook the entire city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel that all those sweet happy moments in Danny's life have always been undercut with some shit happening. Some negative as fuck shit. Mainly it's Vlad's fault. But anyways, what did you think of how I handled that? Please, tell me as much as you wanna tell me. don't be afraid to ramble to me, that's how I get more ideas.


	4. Frights and Fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Family Bonding Moment is interrupted by a ghost attack. There's a fun fight, and then a show of trust

Danny felt, through his link to his other body, that the explosion wasn’t as random as it could’ve been.  His transformation happened so fast he didn’t register it until he was ten feet in the air.  “Crap, Jazz get the Jack o Nine-Tails and some rifles, it’s the Fright Knight attacking Sam, Tucker, and Elle.  I can’t hold him off for long without backup and Elle’s getting low on energy fast after that fight with Skulker.”

“Where’s it happening and how do you know this?”  Danny turned his head back so fast he felt a few joints pop at the sound of his mother’s voice.   _ Riiight, just came out to Mom and Dad as half dead.  That’s a thing that just happened. _  Maddie held a bazooka in her hands and so did Jack.  “The Fright Knight is the ghost that was helping that Ghost King in his invasion, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, he was.  Fright is one of Pariah’s generals, or at least I think he still is.  Right now, he’s attacking Sam’s house, I left a duplicate of myself there to study, and we need to get there Asap.”  Danny glanced over to his dad and tilted his head.  “Dad’s driving ASAP.”  Danny turned intangible and away from his parents.  “I’ll tell you more when you get there, but I have to go  _ now _ !”  Propelling himself like a rocket, Danny was out of the house and streaking through the sky over Amity toward Sam’s house.

* * *

 

Elle was working with limited resources trying to keep her head on in this fight.  Fright Knight was slashing at her and Danny so fast that she could barely keep up.  At one point, his sword did go through her, and she almost didn’t phase to the right layer of reality to avoid it in time.  “Holy crap, you’re really trying to kill a little girl!”  Elle couldn’t unleash any more attacks at the moment, or else she’d fall apart from the strain.  She was already starting to grow goopey, actually, and that was a concern when fighting a level 8 ghost.

Danny raised a shield around Elle and kicked Fright in his side hard enough to back the knight away from his sister and toward the ground.  “What kind of knight attempts to assassinate a child?  I thought your kind had honor?”  A circular shield appeared on Danny’s arm and he used it to block the swing from Soulshredder that still managed to push him back.  Twin rays of plasma cracked the hasty defense and Danny slung another curveball of power at Fright.

The knight deflected the ectosphere and parried the edge of the Phantom’s shield that came down upon his shoulder.  The knight uppercut the younger in the jaw and sent him flying high into the air.  “Silence welp!  You know not what you speak of!  I shall present the head of this wench to my new master, Plasmius.”  A kick and Danny was planted in the asphalt, through a car.  “And I shall present you as an offering to the ancients.”

“The Ancients?  Who are they?”  Danny shot a beam from his eyes and hissed.  His duplicate was beginning to fade, but he couldn’t let Fright know that.  So, he concentrated and formed a baseball bat.  “A bunch of old cronies in need of a lesson like you?”  Dodge, dodge, swing, duck - pain.  Pain everywhere.  “Now you’re acting like I insulted your horse.”  Thank the gods for Sam and Tucker, they were there with a backpack and shooting Fright with Fenton rifles.  “Thanks!”

“The Ancients are the spirits whose power governs the entire Netherworld, you foolish ghost!”  Fright held up a meteor made of purple flaming plasma and launched it at Danny.  “To insult them is to insult the Netherworld, and I shall not allow such heresy to go unpunished!”  Elle’s foot came into view at the same time that Danny swung his bat at the plasmasphere.  There was also a rush of energy from his original and the giant attack shattered, blowing the phantoms back.  “This shall be your undoing, Phantom!”

“I don’t think so!”  A green comet flew down from the sky and impacted Fright’s back so hard that the ground beneath them cracked.  Armor chipped and car alarms blared as Danny absorbed his duplicate and drew the bat over to him.  “I’ve got this fun habit of defying death, and you’re not gonna get between me and that hobby of mine, Fright!”  He smacked the knight in the gut with as much force as he entered with, knocking him high into the sky.  Tucker and Sam shot the spirit in the face and leg when he stopped and Fright snarled at them.  He raised his sword and a portal opened up in the sky, Nightmare appearing at his side.

“ _ I will have your heads! _ ”  A jet of flame flew from the sword and Danny got between it and his friends.  As Danny’s shield was engulfed in flames, Elle reached out and drew the fire into her hands.  When the knight stopped, his flames swirled around a green dome, and Elle shone with renewed strength.  “ _ Damn you! _ ”

Elle warped in front of Fright and kicked him in the jaw, launching a blast in his face.  She warped back behind Danny and Sam opened up her backpack.  “I got this.  Danny, if you can grab SoulShredder, please?”  Out of her spider bag, Sam pulled a pumpkin, and the Fright Knight narrowed his eyes.  Twin beams of plasma raced for Sam, and Elle blocked the shot.  Danny zoomed forth and parried the knight’s swing with his bat, taking in a breath that sucked in all of the energy around them.  “Elle, your ears.”  Sam set down the pumpkin and covered her ears just in time for Danny to unleash his Wail.

Wave after wave of raw force carrying ectoplasma on them slammed into the Fright Knight and his Nightmare.  Danny’s bat rested firmly against the flat of Fright’s sword while his attack shattered windows and shook the ground, battering both knight and alicorn steed with a rage like an ocean.  When the knight went flying back, unable to fight the tide of force any longer, Danny clamped his mouth shut and caught the sword, tossing it in the direction of Sam’s pumpkin.

Elle grabbed onto its handle and winced when it yanked back toward the knight.  “What do I do?!”

“The pumpkin!  Stab the pumpkin!”  Tucker lifted it up while Sam caught her footing, and Elle impaled the vegetable on the end of the enchanted sword with Fright an inch away from her back.  The spirit howled in rage and was turned into a cloud of mist along with his horse, both being sucked into the blade of Soul Shredder.  Elle fell to the ground and morphed back into her human form, chest heaving with heavy breaths.  Tucker fell similarly and Danny dropped down to his knees.  “Oh god, that was ridiculous.  I don’t think I can handle anymore action, guys.”

A rumble shook the street as the Fenton Family Ghost Assault Vehicle rolled up to the scene.  Tucker and Sam stood in front of Danny as he morphed back to his own Fenton form and Elle shifted into invisibility to hide behind a car.  Maddie was out first, a gun almost as big as her slung over her shoulder.  “Where’s the ghost attacking my baby boy?”  she scanned the area through her ecto signature detecting goggles and stopped on the pumpkin.  “That sword is covered in ectoplasm, kids get away from it!”

Jack aimed the cannons of the GAV at the pumpkin, all of which began charging with an ominous whir.  “GHOST SWORD!  KIDS BACK AWAY WHILE I DESTROY IT!”  Jazz and Danny’s groans of exasperation were synchronized and Sam wondered absently if they were psychic.

“Mom, Dad,” Danny said slowly, standing up with Sam as his brace.  “This is SoulShredder.  Sword of the Fright Knight.  I’m pretty sure that if you break his sword, the enchantment keeping him sealed up in it and the pumpkin is going to break, and then the spirit of Halloween is going to unleash hell on earth with nearly no way of stopping him.”  Danny spread his arms out wide, eyes focused on his mother.  “Put your guns away, we’ve taken down the ghost.  Please.  I’ve been doing this for a year, I can handle Fright Knight with Sam and Tuck’s help.”  The cannons all powered down and retracted into their compartments within the GAV, and his mother’s jumpsuit and Danny relaxed with a sigh.

“Danny, what are you doing?”  Tucker hissed in his ear.  “Why are you telling them about our ghost hunting?  Did you… you told them?” Tucker was shaking his arm now and Danny grabbed onto the geek’s hand to stop him.  “Sorry.”

Danny nodded, a smile o his face.  “Yeah Tuck, I told em.  I trust them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI  
> so i just wrote this whole chapter today. Well most of it. Because of an awesome reviewer who i entirely appreciate. please, tellme what you think, it affects what i write.


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